Update: BrightScope Announces Top 25 Miami Area-Based RIA Firms

W.E. Family Offices Take the No. 1 Spot With $2.7 Billion in Total Assets Under Management, Followed by Lipper Advisory Services With $2.6 Billion

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 20, 2014) - BrightScope (www.brightscope.com), a leading provider of independent financial information and investment research, today announced the Top 25 Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms in the Miami area, focused on individual money management, with the greatest amount of assets under management. This list is part of the series that BrightScope regularly issues to highlight data contained within its recently enhanced Advisor Pages™, a comprehensive directory of nearly 600,000 financial advisors that serves as a breakthrough way for people to discover, research, and select a financial advisor.

"This year's list of Miami's Top RIA Firms shows a steep increase in assets under management, signaling area investors are more confident in the market," said Brooks Herman, Head of Data and Research at BrightScope. "Those looking to find a qualified investment professional turn to BrightScope's Advisor Pages because we've created a simple, unbiased way for them to find the one that best suits their unique financial situation. In turn, Advisor Pages is a highly-visible platform RIAs can use to highlight their expertise and be discovered by potential investors."

By aggregating hard-to-discover but publicly available information on advisors, BrightScope has created a free, easy-to-use database that is searchable from multiple dimensions. BrightScope's Advisor Pages™ features the data most critical to investors tasked with making an informed decision on which financial professional best meets their needs, including location, qualifications, amount and types of assets under management, area of specialty, legal disputes, formal complaints and more.

The previous list of Top Miami RIA firms was published in 2012. Noteworthy findings in this year's list include:

W.E. Family Offices tops the list with 2.7 billion under management, $800 million more than the frontrunner in 2012

Eleven of the companies also appeared on BrightScope's 2012 list of the Top RIA Firms in Miami

* Total firm assets under management are subject to change, as data is continually updated over time. The information presented in this list is current as of March 18, 2014, and should be viewed as a snapshot in time.

BrightScope obtains its data directly from publicly available sources, including required regulatory filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial advisors can augment these primary sources by claiming their BrightScope Advisor Page™. By analyzing and interpreting this data, BrightScope now provides unparalleled insight into the financial management industry.

About BrightScopeBrightScope is a financial information company that brings transparency to opaque markets through independent research and analysis. Delivered through web-based software, BrightScope data drives better decision-making for individual investors, corporate plan sponsors, asset managers, broker-dealers, and financial advisors. The BrightScope Rating™, developed in partnership with leading independent 401k fiduciaries, reviews more than 200 unique data inputs per plan and calculates a single numerical score which defines plan quality at the company level. In April 2011, the company launched BrightScope Advisor Pages™, the first comprehensive and publicly available directory of financial advisors designed to help consumers discover information and conduct due diligence on wealth management professionals. BrightScope also markets a suite of data analytics software products to Fortune 1000 companies, asset managers, broker-dealers, financial advisors, and other market participants. Public ratings for nearly 50,000 retirement plans as well as rating definitions, criteria and methodologies, and information on nearly 600,000 financial advisors and nearly 40,000 advisory firms are available for free at www.brightscope.com.